Abby Jellinek-Johnson, MS, RDN, LD, CLT

Founder

Abby was born and raised in Marietta Georgia and now resides very close to where she grew up with her husband and three kids. She is devoted to helping others reach their full health potential through healthy eating and lifestyle habits. Abby started her career in the health and fitness field as a certified personal trainer, graduating from Indiana University with a degree in Kinesiology in 2005. Her passion for health and wellness led her to pursue a career as a dietitian completing her Master’s Degree in Dietetics in 2014 from Georgia State University. Abby opened up her own practice in 2018 with the mission of helping people from all walks of life.  Harmony Nutrition was founded on the core beliefs that “a body in harmony performs at its best”.

Research shows that families who work together to lead healthy lives are more likely to achieve desired health goals over individuals working alone. For this reason, Abby believes strongly in the “family approach”. Whether it is including one’s spouse in nutrition and lifestyle plan for weight loss or including the whole family in meal planning for a child with severe food allergies; Abby works with couples and families supporting the “team mentality”.

During her time at Georgia State University, Abby worked as a research assistant where she helped to facilitate research on the validity and reliability of assessing resting metabolism in overweight and obese adolescence under to leadership of Sarah Henes PhD. The study, “Assessing Resting Metabolic Rate in Overweight and Obese Adolescents with a Portable Indirect Calorimeter: A Pilot Study for Validation and Reliability” was published in 2015 in Nutrition in Clinical Practice. Abby also completed her thesis research at the Strong4Life® clinic at Children’s Health Care of Atlanta exploring nutritional strategies that correlated with success for adolescence undergoing bariatric weight loss surgery. Her work, “The Relationship between Fruit and Vegetable Intake of Adolescents before Sleeve Gastrectomy and Success with Weight Loss Six Months Post-Surgery” was published in 2016 in Bariatric Surgical Practice and Patient Care.

After graduating, she spent two years working for Children’s Health Care of Atlanta at a specialty clinic called the Aerodigestive clinic where she had the opportunity to work with children who were challenged by digestive and pulmonary disorders. After leaving CHOA, Abby went on to continue her work with children by working with the Center for Rare Neurological Diseases where she continues to contribute to nutrition research on rare neurological conditions including Rett Syndrome, GLUT 1 deficiency, and Pitt Hopkins Syndrome.

Abby has a strong passion for kids. As a mom herself, she knows how difficult it can be sometimes to simply get your kids to eat healthy.  She has conducted seminars on “Raising Healthy Eaters” and “Eating Healthy on Budget”. Additionally, Abby has worked with numerous families to treat everyone from infants having trouble gaining weight, teenagers struggling with weight loss, food allergies, and more.

Abby has a special passion for working with young athletes. Abby recognizes that athletes up to the age of 18 are not just “younger adults”.  Younger athletes metabolize differently, have higher hydration requirements, and their bodies adjust to exercise differently than adult athletes. For this reason, it is important for young athletes to follow nutrition advice tailored to their specific needs. Abby has worked independently with athletes as young as six years old all the way up to retired NFL players. Her experience includes assisting athletes with sport-specific weight goals, performance nutrition for strength or endurance, injury recovery, and much more.

Weight loss is a common reason that many people seek the professional advice of a dietitian. Abby has helped numerous clients lose weight by evaluating numerous aspects of her client’s lives in order to determine how to best approach their individual goal. Abby recognizes that difficulty losing weight can be rooted in many aspects of someone’s life including sleep patterns, stress, hydration, the type of exercise someone is doing, as well as the most obvious which is nutrition.